A practice dedicated to creating sustainable, just, healthy and beautiful urban environments.
Can we create a multiplicity of futures?
Can we plan sustainable urban environments for all?
We believe that with a holistic and long-term approach we can.
We are living in a time of human-made planetary disruption, of increasing privatization of space, a highly unequal distribution of wealth, growing compartmentalisation of information, and specialization of knowledge. It takes a holistic, collective and well planned action to cope with any urban challenges our planet is facing.
Extensive knowledge and experience in sustainable urban planning in research as well as in practice, in architecture, cultural studies, and geography informs the
holistic approach of this practice. With experience of working in Japan, Singapore, Switzerland and the US, mediating between and connecting different ‘languages’ and cultures of practices, and finding productive channels for collaboration has been an integral part of our work. This includes bringing different planning cultures together, translating different realms of urban science into spatial schemes, negotiating different disciplinary expertise in a planning project, and incorporating different cultural conceptions of our environment productively.
We believe in the transgression of any disciplinary, cultural, and political boundaries to work with various tools for assessment and design, and navigate through the ever changing predictions regarding our futures. We draw from latest advancement in urban science and cutting edge developments in urbanism and planning which are needed to develop apt strategies or carry out in depth research on topics addressing our urban environment and its futures.
Our scope of work includes designing at the smallest scale, our immediate surrounding, our home, to strategic planning at the larger scale of ecosystems and our biosphere. It ranges from ‘hard-ware’ planning of urban development projects and ‘soft-ware’ strategies for urban regeneration, activation and occupation.
What we offer therefore goes beyond conventional master planning, but also includes phasing schemes, coastal mitigation strategies, urban design guideline and policy development and hitozukuri* in relation to community building. *(Japanese term for developing people’s skills through an education process and empowering them so they themselves can take action).
Architecture as the production and science of space in the largest sense thrives by borrowing and learning from all other fields and is the starting point for any action.
Our work on interconnected urbanization processes in Asia and Europe forms the basis of an understanding of global networks of production which have to be considered in any action taken forward. Our experience with high-density urban environments in different geographies is our reference for working with private and public actors, planning in consideration of multiple interests and ecosystems, and working towards adaptive and inclusive urban developments. This also supports the research arm of our practice which include vision development, brief preparation, feasibility studies, project narration, publication and others.
We are driven by curiosity and a deeply-felt responsibility for our urban environment and its futures.